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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26757886">In The Leaves</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/loststardust/pseuds/loststardust'>loststardust</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Peaky Blinders (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Light Choking, Mild Smut, Power Play, i cant believe i am tagging these things</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 13:07:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,843</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26757886</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/loststardust/pseuds/loststardust</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>'Am I in trouble?' you ask. 'If you want to be', he says.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tommy Shelby/Original Character(s), Tommy Shelby/Reader, Tommy Shelby/You</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>82</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>In The Leaves</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The house is quiet when you get home, shut off, and dark, and empty empty empty. You dawdle in the entry way. Drip your coat off, leave your bag by the hat stand. If Tommy’s in he’s sleeping, or hiding, or locked up in the office with his head in the whiskey. You unlace your boots and push them under the dresser, though he hates when you do that. There’s places for shoes, he says, put them away.</p><p>‘Tom?’</p><p>You call his name quietly, around the open door to his office. There’s no light, no man. He’s in bed, then. For once he’s beaten you to it.  </p><p>You go upstairs, zigzagging on the wide staircase because you can, because it’s late and your time is still your own to play with. It isn’t often that you take nights for yourself. No Tommy, no business. Free to do as you please. You’d gone to Vera’s first, then to the dancehall, then to Polly’s house in that little village, with the pretty parks and the bridges. You’d made your driver wait in the car until you were bored, and you’d paid him handsomely for it. That was part of the novelty too; money from your purse, orders in your voice, followed, not questioned. You see why Tommy craves it.</p><p>‘I should go home,’ you’d told Pol, ‘he hates when I’m away.’</p><p>‘No, love, he just hates not knowing where.’</p><p>‘Oh,’ you’d said. ‘Oh, no, I don’t think that’s it at all.’</p><p>When you reach the top, your stocking snags on a splintered floorboard. You pull it twice, and then it’s free again, but there’s a rip from your heel to your ankle. They were new; you’d put them on straight from the packet.</p><p>‘[Y/n]?’ His voice comes from the bedroom, low and curling around the hallway. ‘That you?’</p><p>‘Yes, Tom,’ you answer. ‘I’ve ripped my tights on the stairs.’</p><p>You follow your voice back to him, chase it through until you’re in the doorway, and he’s in the bed, ignoring you like you’d said nothing at all. You were right. Not sleeping, but hiding. He’s sitting against the headboard, chest bare, with the covers to his waist. He looks young, boyish. There’s note-paper in his hands and two more sheets of it on his lap.</p><p>‘Where’ve you been?’ he asks, without looking from his reading.</p><p>You slouch into the doorframe. ‘Am I in trouble?’</p><p>His eyes flick to you. It’s so quick, it may have just been the light on his glasses. ‘If you want to be,’ he says.</p><p>‘I was at Poll’s house.’</p><p>‘Drinking?’</p><p>‘Of sorts.’ The tear in your stocking is growing, you lift your foot to feel your heel through the hole. ‘She read my leaves,’ you say.</p><p>He sighs, sets the paper down, and picks up the next. ‘Did she?’</p><p>Your foot hits the floor with a thump. ‘Don’t you want to know what she saw?’</p><p>No, he thinks. No, I don’t care, he thinks. No, I’m sitting and reading and not looking at you, not even once, because I’m Tommy, and I’m bored of everything that isn’t myself.</p><p>You watch for a reaction. A clue that you’re right, that he is thinking all that, but he’s just still. His eyes follow the lines slowly. He clears his throat once, and then flips the page over to read the back.</p><p>‘It involved the two of us,’ you add, ‘the pictures in the leaves.’</p><p>‘Hm?’</p><p>Sighing, you cross the room and climb onto the bed on your knees.</p><p>‘You’re no fun, Tommy Shelby.’ Not when you want him to be. Not when it costs his time.</p><p>You crawl over to him, then turn onto your back and put your head on his thigh. You set your cheek against the covers so you can watch him, so he can find you at the bottom of the page, so he looks at you without meaning to. ‘What’re you reading that’s so important?’ you ask.</p><p>‘Letters,’ he answers, dropping the word into your gaze.</p><p>‘From who?’</p><p>‘Important people, love.’</p><p>‘Can’t I know?’ You touch his elbow, running your fingers in circles around the ridges of his skin. ‘I write your letters for you, sometimes.’</p><p>The paper lowers enough that your hand becomes trapped between his arm and the pillow behind him. ‘You asked for the night off, didn’t you?’</p><p>From work. Not from conversation, not from him. ‘I suppose,’ you grumble. Your bottom lip juts out and you let it sit there. Watch me pout, Tommy, watch me sulk like a child.</p><p>He sighs. Then he stacks the letter with the others and puts them all, abandoned, on the bedside table. ‘Alright,’ he says, once he’s looking down at you again. ‘What did Polly say,’ he groans, settling into the bed, ‘about your tea?’</p><p>You pull your hand free and turn your head to the ceiling. Your arms cross over your chest. It doesn’t matter now, it isn’t as interesting. ‘I’ve forgotten. Something about changing responsibility.’</p><p>‘Responsibilities?’ His hand goes to your face, his index finger trailing the line of your nose, across your lips and over your chin, down, down until it’s resting in the hollow of your throat. ‘Yours or mine?’ he asks.</p><p>‘Ours.’</p><p>He hums, the noise is deep in his chest, tumbling lower and under your skull. ‘What else?’</p><p>Suddenly, you’re shy. Nervous to tell him. What Polly had seen had excited you, filled you up with possibility and wonder, left you curious. Wanting. Tommy’s scrutiny would kill that, you’re sure. He’d flay the ideas and leave you to gather the scraps. ‘Nothing important,’ you tell him. ‘She thinks I should let go more. Let myself be.’</p><p>‘You should.’ His hand flattens over your collarbone. It’s either mercy, or his interest peaking and withering between you, because he changes subject like the conversation’s over. ‘You ripped your stockings?’ he asks, question already answered in his tone.</p><p>You look back to him, smiling. ‘So, you were listening.’</p><p>His eyebrows raise, head tilting as if to say, maybe. Maybe he was. Maybe he’s seen the ladder running up your calf.</p><p>‘Will you buy me a new pair?’ you ask.</p><p>‘If you want.’</p><p>‘Fancy ones? French?’</p><p>He nods.</p><p>‘You’ll give me anything, won’t you?’ Anything with a price tag, anything material. If it was within reason, he’d say yes, he’d have it on your dresser in a ribbon by the morning. You loop your fingers around his wrist. ‘Anything but attention,’ you muse. ‘That, I have to work for.’</p><p>You watch him blink, watch him incline his head and wet his lips. ‘Doesn’t everyone?’</p><p>No, not most.</p><p>‘You like working for it,’ he adds.</p><p>You snort. ‘Not always.’</p><p>Sometimes it’s nice to start things, sometimes you like to pull the want from behind his bored eyes. To make him need you, to make him melt beneath, and give way, craving, falling to the tide. Other times, it feels like a chore. Another responsibility you hadn’t asked for.</p><p>‘I shouldn’t have to do it all the time,’ you say, quieter than planned.</p><p>‘You have my attention now.’</p><p>‘Because I took it,’ you say.</p><p>‘No,’ he corrects. 'Because I gave it.’</p><p>He hold’s your gaze for a moment. Something slips between you, a new tension that twitches under your ribs, scattering your heartbeat. It bubbles and gathers in your chest, forces your breaths to become quick and short. You’re sure he notices it. Sure he’s planned for it. He looks down at you, lay against his lap, like he’s waiting for the nerves to form; for anticipation to fizz your senses.</p><p>His hand slides up until its curving around your neck, thumb and fingers bracketing your throat. It stills there, baited, cold against your skin. ‘Is it enough?’ he asks. ‘Have you had enough, hm?’</p><p>You swallow; it runs under his palm, sinking into your gut. ‘No, not yet.’  </p><p>He squeezes once, pulling lightly enough to get you to comply, and then you’re sitting up for him. Up and towards his chest, with his hand on your throat and your fingers scooped over his shoulders.</p><p>‘You don’t want to start things,’ he says, ‘not always?’</p><p>Your head shakes by itself.</p><p>‘Words, love.’</p><p>‘No,’ you answer.</p><p>‘Done making decisions, eh?’ His hand twists to hold the back of your neck, fingers splayed and straying into the base of your hair. ‘Tired of taking charge?’</p><p>‘Yes, Tom.’</p><p>He nods, the gesture is so slight it could have been nothing. ‘Take my glasses off,’ he says.</p><p>You do. You pull them from his face and set them on top of the papers, his gaze unmoving as you do so. The room’s quiet, but your head’s swelling with noise, your blood pumping loud enough to convince your eardrums that it’s in there. Filling your skull. Strong enough to dizzy you. When you straighten in front of him, his hands are on your waist, firmly, like he knows you need it.</p><p>Then he leans forward, pushing you backwards until you’re beneath him. Your arms are pulled upwards, flat on the bed, crossed at the wrists. He holds them there with one hand.</p><p>‘Have to let yourself be,’ he says by your ear. ‘You don’t want control, do you?’</p><p>You want to answer him. You want to tell him that this is what you’d meant, this is how it should be. Not always, but sometimes. A change of responsibility like the leaves said. When you open your mouth, all that pours out is a sweetened moan. It rides your breath over his shoulder and into the air.</p><p>‘No,’ you sigh. Not tonight. You don’t want control, you want this, you want this and him and attention until it’s flooding you. Until it’s too much.</p><p>Head lowered, he sinks kisses into your neck. Drags teeth and tongue down the line of your throat ’til you’re mewling. You lift up against him, back curved and eager, but he pushes back with his hips. Forces you down, subdued. Into the mattress and wanting.</p><p>‘Tommy,’ you whine.</p><p>He shushes you. ‘Leave them there,’ he says, as he pulls his hand from your wrists.</p><p>He goes upright, backwards and away from you, sitting on his heels like he’s praying. The sheet lies twisted around his knees. You wish he’d move it, you want bare skin against bare skin.</p><p>‘What shall I do with you?’ he asks himself. ‘Ay? How shall I have you?’</p><p>You’re putty waiting beneath his fingers. You’re honey, dripping, cloying, holding shape but slowly losing. His thumb finds the band of your stocking, pulls it taut against the clip that holds it there. Anything. Do anything. You’re his, you’re melting. You’re light pouring through the gaps and waiting, waiting to burst. Elastic snaps against your thigh. He smiles.</p><p>‘I like having you like this,’ he says.</p><p>Like you’re leaves, swirled and left in the cup. Wanting to be read, to be understood, to be laid out and fulfilled.</p><p>‘Like you’re mine,’ he finishes.</p><p>‘I am,’ you tell him. ‘I am, Tommy, I am.’</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hello love you all as always, here is some devilish tommy for you</p></blockquote></div></div>
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